13 Signs

13 Signs is a series of photographs made during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world as we knew it seemed to stop. The people of the world covered their mouths, stepped 6 ft back, and waited for a sign. Because communication was muffled by masks and distance, body language (the language of gesture) came to the fore. Gestures are alive and meant to be seen in motion. When that motion is frozen, as in photographs and pandemics, context can also be suspended.

Many of these hand signals can be traced back to ancient Rome, which is the trunk of Western Civilization’s tradition of empire-building through colonization. These are the gestures of a dominating culture; communiques such as hunger and the need to be seen sit neatly alongside commands and threats. But context changes everything. Freezing the frame on these gestures reminds me that the meaning of signs is intimately linked to who is making them, who is reading them, and when.

Gestures performed by Max Jordana, first generation Filipino-American, in Los Ángeles in April of 2020.